Tag Archives: corriedale

Sheep and Gardens

Posted in Farming, Fun on the farm, Fun with fiber, Gardening by

Don’t get too excited, it isn’t what you think. Believe me when I say, that I want this title to be about my very own sheep. Alas, the sheep in which my title refers is to all the beautiful sheep that I saw Mother’s Day weekend at the NH Sheep and Wool festival.

I had my mind made up before I left the house, I had a list & knew what I wanted.

And I will tell you friends, that Alpaca was definitely not on my list

But I bought a pound.

Goat was also not on my list…yep, I bought an entire angora goat fleece.

I had considered buying merino again, from a new vendor this time. Alas I found none. Instead I went to the judging barn and fell in love with a beautiful Corriedale fiber. The only thing I got this was actually on my list was Navajo Churro, I am interested to see how that spins up.

Not everything thing has been washed, but I finally got the chance to washed the beautiful Shetland wool that I was gifted last fall. I’ve been using my new combs and combing up a storm at our booth at the farmers market.

I also has some of Noël’s fiber to spin up. She has fought me for so long about getting sheared, last week we had a hot day of 85 and she just sat on my lap with no fuss and allowed me to cut away. She looks like a whole new rabbit!

As much as I love snow, I am glad the heat is here. We have been busy transplanting veggies out into the garden beds. Last week we had the help of my nephew who was up from Georgia!

He helped with the beds and helped us fence off two acres of woods for the pigs

The potatoes are getting bigger every day, we planted thirty pounds this year!

Set up a drip irrigation line in the greenhouse

And finally put the babies out with the big girls.

I have two (yes that’s right) projects finished

This beautiful lap blanket that I had been making for my grandmother, I gave it two her two days before she passed.

The second is the mandala waistcoat I had been working on for my cousins wife. This was a challenging project, but I enjoyed making it.

As we are on our first of many days of rain and it is dreary outside, I will end this with a bit of color. I’ve had a request at the farmers market for colorful wool for felting.

And I delivered!

Have a great week folks!!

Beet it

Posted in Uncategorized by

So we have an abundance of many things in our garden right now, beets being one of them, the grace our table nearly three times a week. Now usually I just pour out the beet juice, but last night I did something a little different.


I took my lovely first prize winning (I’m so happily surprised by that) Blue faced leicester and soaked it in bowl of warm water and vinegar for about twenty – thirty minutes, not sure on the exact time but it was soaking during bedtime stories.

Then following instructions I read on a blog about dying fabric, I added four cups of water and two cups of vinegar to the beet juice…now as you may have guessed it, this diluted the juice a bit 


It was hard to tell what this would turn into, would the color stay?! I wasn’t sure, I’ve been to a couple natural dye day workshops now and no one ever said anything about beets. First I had pictured a deep dark purple, then as it steamed for twenty minutes obviously I imagined cheery red. 

I let the yarn sit in the beet juice overnight, & what I got folks is a lovely color I wouldn’t trade for anything, a color to remind me that my favorite time of year is rapidly approaching


A nice yam orange. 

Well I had so much fun dying the BFL with the beets that I decided I wanted to try more colors, sadly these aren’t natural, but it is colors I’ve tried for a long time to achieve.


Corriedale

Coopworth
They make me think of the ocean, I think they will both be headed up to my etsy page tomorrow after they have dried. 

Have a great Labor Day folks!!

Making headway

Posted in Fun with fiber, Uncategorized by

I’m happy to say that even though I have been having issues with pain in my hands and my ball winder calling it quits, I’m back on track! 

I was able to untangle and save most of the Seawool today 

Finished spinning and plying the other half of my coopworth (I have yet to count the yards)


Started seasilk


And have gathered my other skien soft yarn together to get ready for the fair

With all the rain we will be getting this week, I feel like I could knock out two or three more skeins!

Have a great night folks!

Anniversary #3 *edit*

Posted in Farming, Fun on the farm, Fun with fiber, kids, Uncategorized by

Apparently I missed it, but according to WordPress

So let’s have a quick year in review

* This time last year I was home schooling

* We were renting a house on the New Hampshire/Vermont boarder, just two hours south of Canada

* We were just starting our house hunting search, hoping for at least 50 acres

* We had a dog, cat, and rabbit

In that time we have: 

* Stopped Homeschooling 

* Bought a 95 acre farm a little over two hours away from where we had been living

* I started quilting

* I joined a knitting group

* We now have deep breath: a dog, cat, rabbit, three pigs, four turkeys, ten ducks, 66 laying birds, and 100 meat birds….I feel like we have more chickens than that…but I am not going to go count. 

I am now also 32, & according to my lovely nine year old, if you think I look younger, you need your eyes checked. Nice, isn’t she?!

So, to add to the last post, yes we FINALLY got couches


Which would almost make my house look “adult”, if it weren’t for my fireplace

We built a coop for our backyard flock last week


And then went & picked up:

(Back to front): Splatoon, Petunia, & Toffee (who is anything but sweet I case you were wondering).

Saturday we attended the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool festival! It was so much fun!!

I was lucky enough to run into two of my old guild members from the RI Spinning Guild, Dave & his daughter Katie!! I was hoping to see Iris and a few others as well,  though I heard they were going to be there the next day, sorry to have missed everyone.
We had a busy afternoon, we watched the herding dog demo


Toph got to help shear an alpaca


They don’t just sit there all docile like every single sheep I’ve ever watched get shorn, but he seemed way happier without all that heavy. 


I bought 6lbs and 3oz of yummy wool!! Ohhhh baby! The two largest bags are each 2lbs of  my all time favorite, beautiful, silky (after its washed) Merino. The bag in front is 1lb of beautiful luscious Romney, behind that is 3oz Corriedale all ready to be spun up, and then finally a lb of coopworth. I cannot wait to start processing this wool!! 


There were so many large bags of wool, I couldn’t believe it, and the prices were fantastic!! 


Lorelai enjoyed watching the horses, while we waited for Toph to finish watching the lecture about coyotes.


I finally figured out the Bavarian stitch blanket on the way home.

I’m currently recovering from the head cold I picked up after you know…building a coop in the rain on Friday, & processing chickens (not mine) in the cold and rain on Sunday. Monday I slept all day long under three heavy blankets.

Tuesday and Wednesday I made a rather large amount of progress on my sweater

Not the best picture, but it was a last minute picture. I am just starting the lovely semi-lacy design part….glad to be doing something other than the stockinette stitch.

I’m off to soak up the sunshine (I hope, we’ve had hail twice this week).

Have a great day folks!

Also, thank you to everyone who has read my blog along the way, read it once, read it & liked what they have read, read it & rolled their eyes, those who keep coming back, those who are new, those who stumbled on my blog by mistake (oh yes, I’ve read the search terms and also wondered how you ended up here).

Thank you all for sticking with me!! You are all awesome!!
*edit*

Oh hey look!! 200 posts!